Crafting for console players in DST

[Keiriara]

I only made this account just to share my feelings on one grievance I can’t ever set aside.
 

To begin, I started playing Don’t Starve in 2014, played until 2018 with great love, then after a while I moved to DST, enjoyed both games, and played them a ton along with the respective DLC’s happily pulling off many 500+ day worlds.

 

Around 2022 a random curveball update came to DST for console players that completely reworked the crafting menu, it became infinitely more clunky to navigate and ironically much more confusing than the previous one (especially for new players)

 

After this update dropped I spent around 2 months trying to get used to it but never could, and eventually I quit playing for good because it was too complex to deal with, but deep down I still cherished DST and all these years later it reignited my will to say some key things about this.

 

Chances are when I make a post like this the replies will be from technical people who may say stuff like “Oh but the new system is faster, it’s better, more efficient” but I didn’t come here for those views because that is highly subjective and every story has two sides.

 

Objectively the system is trying to do a good thing, compensate for excess of items and simplify crafting, which is great, but in practice, it came out of left field, feels very sticky to use in game and personally for me, not even muscle memory ever remedied it, then to top it off, it offered no alternative or deeper customisability beyond a few lacking settings, no option to revert to the classic (which I felt could have been easily kept in some fashion, or instead mixed with the new system) so in the end I tired of putting up with it. One additional point is the D-pad can’t be used to navigate it, only the right analog stick which also feels pretty weird to this day.

 

And then when I looked online to see if atleast anyone else felt the same way, I saw *lots* of threads from the 2022-2023 era that said this update also ruined Don’t Starve Together for them, how they used to play it with family but couldn’t no more, and how irritating of a sudden change it was overall.

 

This may come across like a bit of whining overall, but the truth is, it’s all built from passion, such a simple aspect changed and created a permanent dissonance out of nowhere that I feel is underlooked to this day.

 

Being critical is more than just stating negatives, usually people expect the person making a point to have suggestions on how it could improve, but for me, the improvement was already there in the past and it was great.

 

Having the sliding bar on the side was quality game design and easy to comprehend (especially on a gamepad), the classic system was literally built carefully for Don’t Starve’s intricacies in mind, like yes the tabs were getting pretty filled up with item bloat but it could have just been made longer downwards in a scrollable fashion to allow extra room for the more miscellaneous craft tabs.

 

The new system has pins, favourites, categories, filters, and a search which is wonderful but it still doesn’t make it any more comfortable beyond minor convenience, because it all misses one thing, it doesn’t fit for console.

 

Anyway, I still get a strong feeling people will look at this topic and dismiss it without giving it any empathy or understanding, but for me, it will still remain something that hurt and broke my will to play something I truly loved, I don’t really have any hope left for it to ever change, but I have always respected Klei a lot for making lots of nice changes and considering player experience so I still wanted to leave my feelings here regardless.

 

I don’t really wish to discuss this deeper, or refute any views of people who may disagree, I simply just wanted to express one concern that on behalf of many console players created an invisible divide that was never considered much ever again.

[Mike23Ua]

I At first I hated the new crafting UI too, it felt too different and weird, BUT if you pause the game and go to settings you can choose how many “Quick Craft” Tabs you want, this is important because… I now have entire tabs dedicated exclusively to weapons/armor, Healing, Boat Kits/Structures etc… something you could have never done with the old Craft system, because you’d spend more time scrolling away through each item you DON’T need until you reach the stuff you DO need.

Quick Crafting tabs are actually faster than the pre-2022 update. 
(scroll to the tab then you can press Left or Right on D-pad to switch between your Crafting Tabs, press Down on the D-pad to craft the item in the tab)

 

Rather you prefer the new or old is strictly personal preference, but there’s no denying the new one is faster & more efficient.

[BeeClops]

While I can agree it's not as well optimized as it is for PC, you can say this about almost anything in this game. I still think it's a huge improvement over the old system(on consoles). But ultimately if you want the most optimized and customized experience, you need to play on PC, we just don't have the same options on consoles.  

You're mostly going to get these type of responses because it's the reality of the situation more than an opinion. The truth is it's undeniably more efficient and faster to use then the old one once you get the hang of it. 

And there's another aspect, we're deep enough into this 'new' crafting that the likelihood of them reverting it back is close to 0 at this point, so embracing the new one seems like the only way to move forward if you don't want to play on pc(where I imagine there are mods that revert it back).